The Florida Department of Health in Leon County and HIV prevention partners across the community invite the general public to the Red Alert! Fashion Show, scheduled to start at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at FSU Health Services, 960 Learning Way. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.

The fashion show is being held on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a day to raise awareness to HIV’s impact on the black community and promote testing and support services offered to residents of Leon County and the greater Big Bend area.
Free and confidential testing for HIV and syphilis, as well as no-cost blood pressure screenings, will be offered on the sidelines of the show.

“We look forward to seeing a big crowd along the runway at the fashion show,” said Cheryl Williams, HIV Prevention Program manager at DOH-Leon. “The bigger the crowd, the better chance we have of reaching meaningful numbers of people in the community on this very important public health issue.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-Americans have the greatest prevalence of HIV in the United States.

Black communities in the North Florida panhandle are feeling the weight of new HIV infections like no other communities in the region.

According to DOH-Leon, approximately 30 percent of Leon County residents are black. Even so, the department notes, more than 75 percent of new HIV infections reported in the region for the past five years have been in black communities.

In 2016, approximately 1 in 100 black men and women residing in Leon County were living with HIV.

DOH-Leon has been concentrating its outreach efforts on black communities in recent years, offering HIV education and prevention trainings and services to schools and partners in those communities.

On Jan. 30, DOH-Leon hosted on the Florida A&M University campus a workshop on how race, class and privilege can impact HIV rates and prevention efforts. In addition to inviting a presenter from The Black AIDS Institute to share information via Skype from her offices in Los Angeles, workshop organizers surveyed workshop participants on their support for inviting the Black Treatment Advocates Network to establish a chapter in the region.

In December, more than 700 young men and women showed up on the FAMU campus for a dance showcase that the HIV prevention team hosted as part of the special outreach to black communities.

For more information on the Red Alert! Fashion Show, call 850-606-8091.
To schedule a free and confidential HIV test, call 850-606-8272.

For more information about the Florida Department of Health please visit www.FloridaHealth.gov.